From 2 -7 September 2019, The 3rd “East Asian Waterbirds Guardian – Waterbird Monitoring Specialist Training ” was held in Shanghai Chongming Dongtan National Nature Reserve (the first Flyway Network Site in China). It was sponsored by the China Green Foundation, and co-organized by World Wide Fund for Nature China (WWF) and Wild Bird Society of Taipei Guandu Natural Park Management Office (hereinafter referred to as “Guandu Nature Park”), Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering of Fudan University and the Shanghai Chongming Dongtan National Birds Nature Reserve. A total of 35 participants from China’s wetlands of international importance, Yangtze River Wetland Protection Network as well as nature reserve or management bureaus of coastal wetlands completed the training. The training was also supported by the East Asia-Australasian Flyway Partnership (EAAFP) to give a presentation, further linking and building capacity of sites managers of the East Asia-Australasian Flyway network.
©WWF
The “East Asian Waterbirds Guardian” training workshop focused safeguarding migratory waterbirds along East Asian-Australasian Flyway, aiming to strengthen the habitat management and restoration through enhancing capacity and professional skills of site mangers of the birds’ habitats. The lecturers included Qian Fawen, Deputy Director of National Bird Banding Centre; Robin Chang, President of and Wild Bird Society of Taipei; Chiang Chung-yu, a very experienced waterbird researcher from Taiwan; and Li Zhenglin, illustrator of the “A Field Guide to the birds of Taiwan”. The content of the training was tailor-made depending on the habitat and waterbirds of the training location, integrated with indoor and outdoor activities, which included waterbird identification and monitoring, bird banding, waterbird sketching, case study of habitat management and citizen science.
© Zhou Minjun
After attending the training, the participants were satisfied with the quality of the training course and the trainers and benefited a lot from the concepts on bird identification, wetland management and promoting environmental education. They expressed that what they have learnt are practical, and expected to implement what they have learnt in their future work to enhance waterbird monitoring and thus wetland protection.
WWF, together with Wild Bird Society of Taipei and Guandu Natural Park Management launched the “East Asian Waterbirds Guardian – Waterbird Monitoring Specialist Training” in 2017. Before this training, there were already two training workshops successfully being held in Shanghai Chongming Dongtan and Yancheng National Nature Reserve.
East Asia-Australasian Flyway (EAAF) is one of the nine flyways for migratory waterbirds in the world and is currently the world’s largest flyway, with millions of migratory waterbirds traveling along this flyway every year. Yet, migratory waterbirds on this flyway are also facing enormous threats, including over-exploitation, human disturbance, pollution, and climate change. The protection of all wintering, breeding grounds and stopover sites along EAAF are essential for the survival of migratory waterbirds, and regional problems may result in impacts on the population of waterbirds of the whole flyway.
© Zhou Minjun
Prepared by: WWF -China (Shanghai Office)
Chinese version:
